“Disappeared?” came from the others.

“Yes.  He had put on the oldest suit of clothes he had and gone away.  Of course my mother sent out an alarm, and men hunted all over for him.  But he was not to be found.”

“But you found him later,” ventured Snap.

“No, he was never found.  When folks learned how queerly he had acted all came to the conclusion that he had gone to the river and drowned himself, and after awhile my mother thought so too.”

“And what of the fortune?” questioned Shep.

“My mother tried to find the letter Uncle Pierre had received, but that was gone too.  Then she wrote to France.  She learned that some money was really coming to her and my uncle, but could not get any particulars.  She even employed a lawyer, but after a year the lawyer gave up, too.  There was a mystery about the whole affair and the solution, it seems, rested with my Uncle Pierre.”

“And you never got the money?” asked Whopper.

“Not a dollar of it.”

“It’s queer you never spoke about this before,” said Snap.

“Well, mother doesn’t like to speak of it, because she doesn’t want folks to know we had a crazy man in our family.  But Uncle Pierre wasn’t really crazy—–­he was only queer—–­and that lightning bolt burning up his beloved manuscripts unset him completely.”

“I hope you’ll get that money some day, Giant,” said Snap.  “I wouldn’t give up trying for it so easily.”

“When I am a man and can afford it, I am going to France and try to hunt it up,” answered the small youth.

“Does your mother ever say anything about it?” questioned Shep.

“Not much.  She hates to think of my uncle.  She was very much attached to him, and to have him disappear like that makes her shudder and feel very bad.”

“Were you living over on the coast when he disappeared?”

“Oh, no, we were living at a place called Bartonville, about twenty miles to the north of here.  My father used to be cashier of the Bartonville Lumber Company.”

“I once heard of a man disappearing and coming home fifteen years later,” said Shep.  “But he simply ran away because he had some trouble with his wife.”

“I heard of a case like that,” put in Whopper, with a grin on his face.  “That man wanted his wife to make him some gooseberry pie and she wouldn’t do it.  When he came back he asked her, ’Maria, will you make the gooseberry pie now?’ and she answered, ‘no.’  ’All right,’ said he, ‘I’ll go away again,’ and he did.”

“That’s a whopper all right enough!” cried Snap.  “It’s about time you turned up.  You have been very quiet lately.”

“I never tell anything but the strict truth,” said Whopper, meekly.

When it came time to retire, Snap asked the others if they should post a guard.

“Oh, I think we are safe enough without one,” answered the doctor’s son, who was fagged out.  “Let’s chance it.”